wickedqueen.net

Thanks to wicked anomie, who posted about it first:

I am feeling a strong inclination to find one of Frontalot’s shows and throw my underwear at him. Although I suppose my dice collection might be more appropriate, as well as more likely to put out someone’s eye. Blinding someone with a d20 is nerdcore, right?

You can get the high-res version of the video at the official site, which also offers assorted merch. I am leaning toward the purple ladies t-shirt.

In case you did not play Zork and require some explanation: Grue (monster)

…and yet, every time I hear “You Oughta Know,” the Uncle Joey connection still pretty much weirds me the hell out.

It’s not the greatest photo, having been taken with my cell phone (although at least I managed to get it off the “postage stamp” setting–there was another photo from this weekend that would have been awesome but you don’t get to see it because it came out like 40 pixels wide), but I really wanted a shot of some of the oleander that is everywhere here, because it seemed perfect for a mix cover:

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When I was eight years old, I spent part of a summer in Tucson, alternating between my grandparents, who lived just outside the city in Sauhuarita, and my father, who was doing something with a lab at the University of Arizona.**

My clearest memory of this summer is of watching episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series on the old black and white TV in the back bedroom with the red batik bedspread and the ancient faded red corduroy chair. I loved Star Trek. Most of all, I loved Mr. Spock; he was my second non-animated crush, the first having been Michael Praed as Robin Hood in the BBC’s Robin of Sherwood.*** I spent many happy hours, perched on that red corduroy chair, imagining myself aboard the Enterprise in Mary Sue-like glory.

Some years later, I discovered slash fan fiction on the internets. This was initially through Highlander, but you don’t spend much time looking at slash without encountering ST:TOS. And then, yesterday, Daniel sends me this:

This is a slash vid set to “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails. As you should know, this means it is Not Safe For Work. It’s “Closer,” for fuck’s sake. And the arrangement of the video clips strongly suggests that Kirk and Spock are making turbulent man-love aboard the Starship Enterprise.

It was just too good not to share. My favorite part is the grainy, sepia-tone quality of the clips, which is what reminds me, more than anything else, of watching the show on that old black-and-white at my grandparents’ house. The more things change, and all.

On a related note, I used to have an “Amok Time” t-shirt that I got at the Salvation Army in Kirksville, Missouri. Like so many other awesome things I have owned, it has vanished without a trace. Lame. At least I still have my HighlandsBarbarian!Duncan McLeod nightshirt.

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*Pon farr

**Unless I made this up in my head. But I was right about John Lennon.

***The animated ones were Lion-O, leader of the Thundercats, and Optimus Prime, leader of the Transformers. What can I say, I have a lust for power. Although apparently it is not a sufficient aphrodisiac for William Shatner.

My new favorite song, thanks to Pandora.com radio, is “Nuclear War - Version 2″ by Yo La Tengo. It’s call and response with an adorable-sounding kindergarten class or something.

They push that button
They push that button
Your ass got to go
Your ass got to go
…
You can kiss your ass
You can kiss your ass
Goodbye goodbye
Goodbye goodbye
…
They push that button
They push that button
Your ass got to go
Your ass got to go
Whatcha gonna do?
Whatcha gonna do?
Without your ass?
Without your ass?

I find it particularly satisfying while studying for prelims, for some reason. Probably the same reason that for my opening number at sociology karaoke on Friday, I selected “King of Pain” by the Police.

There’s a butterfly trapped in a spider web
That’s my soul up there…

Yeah. Three more days.

Yesterday, Jeremy posted about his qualified love for “Rush” by Big Audio Dynamite. The circumstances under which he rediscovered the song are similar to those surrounding my download of Men Without Hats’ “Pop Goes the World” a couple of months ago, with the fortunate difference that “Pop Goes the World” does not contain an unbearable minute right smack in the middle of the song. Also I may be a little more embarrassed about “Pop Goes the World,” although I still think it has a slightly lower cheese factor than “Safety Dance.”

Anyway, I haven’t been listening to “Pop Goes the World” so much in the past few weeks, but I was inspired by Jeremy’s post to create a mix of songs that are a) relatively old and b) relatively well-known. The second criterion should make the resulting disc a radical departure from the mixes I usually do, I know. Or maybe I’m deluding myself about what constitutes “relatively well-known,” but I’ll have you know that I did not include Belinda Carlisle’s “Summer Rain,” although I love it madly, because no one ever knows what the hell I’m talking about when I mention it (also, if I recall correctly, I think Matt told me it actually came out in 1990 and I was trying for a true 80s mix). And I originally included “Buffy Come Back” by Angel & the Reruns, but pulled it because no one but my mother has ever recognized it, and really the whole point of a mix like this is how cool I’m not.*

Boy, there sure were a lot of bands called [Blank] and the [blanks] in the 80s, huh? Or just The [blanks]. Personally, I think there should be more bands with names that are sentences, like Ethan Hawke’s fictional Reality Bites band, Hey! That’s my bike! or my friend Karen’s imaginary nerd!emo band, Gondor Calls For Aid. I can’t think of any actual examples.

Anyway. The mix. The cover image is a slightly altered photo of me in my Lion-O Thunder Cats pajamas, circa 1985:

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I went to see Jim White and the Handsome Family last night–alone, because Kara had to work and I hadn’t been able to find anyone else who even knew who they were, but having heard the Handsome Family’s live CD and heard good things about their shows from numerous people, I really wanted to see them–and I really like Jim White’s stuff, which I discovered only recently when two different people sent me “The Wound That Never Heals” within the space of a week, demonstrating that anyone who knows me knows that I appreciate a good song about a woman killing people.

Anyway, so I went, and it turned out they were having it in the Orpheum’s little side theater, and I got there at like 8:10 and they wouldn’t let anyone in yet despite the ticket’s claim that the doors opened an hour before the show was scheduled to start at 9:00.

So I was standing out there, and there was another woman already hunkered in another doorway to get out of the wind, who said knowingly to me, “Ten minutes, huh?”

We started talking, and I introduced myself with my usual rhymes-with-Scrabble spiel, and then a few minutes later I said something about sociology, and she said, “Wait… I know who you are. You have a blog!”

Crazy.

About ten minutes later, they did let us in, and we sat up in the third row and chatted until Jim White came out and started his set. I didn’t really know how he was going to be in person, and I was at first not encouraged by his opening rendition of “Handcuffed to a Fence in Mississippi,” which I didn’t like much–and I love that song. But then he started talking and was hilarious, and I actually liked the rest of his performance a lot–it was just that one song that compared badly to the album version.

(”You know, my record company tries to sell me as some kind of tortured, demented poet, when in fact, deep down, I’m a comedian. I’m like the opposite of Woody Allen.”)

During the intermission, I bought his first CD (Wrong-Eyed Jesus) and babbled at him about how people kept playing “The Wound That Never Heals” (which he hadn’t actually played in his set, sadly) and how much I loved it.* I should not be allowed to talk to people who I think are cool.

Jim White also had a suitcase full of clothing he calls the “Jimbotique,” clothes he purchased for himself that turned out not to fit. A one-man traveling folk singer thrift store. Keep an eye out.

The Handsome Family were as excellent live as their live CD and the reports of others suggested, but they didn’t finish their set until midnight, by which time, no reflection on them, I was getting pretty yawny. They played “Weightless Again,” which is one of my favorites and the first song I ever heard by them (thanks, frippy!), and they closed their set with “Barbara Allen,” a Child ballad, so that was cool.

Afterwards, I walked home, which wasn’t far, but it was SO COLD.** I am ready for spring.

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*”The Wound That Never Heals” is on No Such Place, which I already own. I bought his first album because it had “A Perfect Day to Chase Tornadoes” on it, which I had never heard until last night and which I love. Apparently he has yet to release another song I liked, “Diamonds to Coal,” so keep an eye out for that.

**Jim White told us at one point that he was going to sing a song about weather, and that when he performed this song in California people just stared at him, but that he knew we would understand.

Mix CDs are the new courtly love, duh. Why didn’t I put this together this morning?

They’re a better analogue than email, really–they have rules, form, schools of thought. I personally am vehemently opposed to including more than one track per artist except in particular extenuating circumstances, such as using all track pairs or starting and ending a mix with bookends.

From Hairstyles of the Damned, an otherwise competent but not awe-inspiring coming-of-age novel by Joe Meno:

“Hey, man, I need to put a mix-tape together for this girl. Can you help me pick out some cool songs she’s never heard before?” I asked.
“Why do you want to put songs she’s never heard on it?”
“Because she does that for me. Plays songs I’ve never heard, you know.”
Rod frowned, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
“Don’t be lame, man,” he said. “That would be like writing somebody else’s love letter.”
“No it isn’t,” I said.
“I’m not helping you out. If you like this girl, you should be able to pick the songs out you want her to hear yourself.”
“But I’ll pick fucking rock songs. I need sexy songs like that shit your dad listens to. Like Chet Baker and shit.”
“Man, forget it. I’m not doing it.”
“You’re screwing me here, Rod,” I said. “You’re blowing my chance with love.”
“No, man, you are,” he said, and I knew I was on my own from there.

…

OK, I had no special song so I was fucked. Because now all I had was the mix-tape. But to make the perfect mix-tape you had to reveal how cool you were, how interesting, without being obvious that the person you were making the tape for was someone you were completely and totally in love with. That’s what Gretchen said anyway.

I suggested this interpretation to my rhetoric prof and he said that he had a girlfriend who told him he needed to stop giving people mix CDs unless he was putting the make on them. I allowed as how that IS basically the default message of the mix CD. I think I’m onto something.

Listening to my music collection on random, I just realized something: I really don’t like Bjork. I don’t, like, HATE Bjork. But every time a Bjork track comes on,* I skip it, because I don’t LIKE Bjork.

I don’t really like Dar Williams, either. Some of her stuff is okay. But that song “The Christians and the Pagans” makes me want to vomit.

On the other hand, I AM one of those hip young crafty people you hear so much about in poorly written college newspaper features:

Short (for me) scarf in half-double crochet using a skein and a half of Yarn Bee Beguile in “aegean,” raising the question: Is this supposed to be like the Red Sea? Are we supposed to believe that the Aegean is some kind of nightmarish Valentine’s cauldron of red, purple, and fuchsia? Am I spelling “fuchsia” correctly? Why can I never remember? (I wasn’t, but thanks to dictionary.com, you would never know if I weren’t so open about these things.)

I did figure out how to make hats last year, but I am lazy, and continue to mostly stick to rectangular objects although I’d really LIKE to make something more complex. I actually bought some Simply Soft recently because there was a pattern on the label for a cute striped sweater, even though I am absolutely terrible at following patterns and have so far not even attempted to get started on it.

I’ve always thought Bellweather was onto something with the whole “low skill threshhold” thing about fads–there’s a reason there are so many people knitting/crocheting scarves and blankets and not a whole hell of a lot else. I don’t WANT to be part of the trendy problem, but… see above re: laziness. At least my “aegean” scarf goes with my hair.

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*One might wonder, since I don’t like Bjork, why these tracks keep coming on. Why do I HAVE Bjork? I think it was an effort to show a college girlfriend that I was an appropriate mate. That doesn’t explain why I haven’t gotten rid of it in the six years since we broke up and stopped speaking, but I’m not always good with change.

It’s the First Day of School. Sadly, this is less exciting than it used to be, although I suppose I put more effort into it in high school, dancing around my room to “Punk Rock Girl” while selecting the perfect outfit.* Not that I’m not still sartorially obsessed–most of the evening before my masters defense was spent not, like, going over my paper or anything, but instead trying on every skirt I owned and agonizing over my shoe selection.

Anyway, I have a class at 2:30 this afternoon, and then I have an appointment for an MRI, because the psych department has tapped me for not one but TWO new studies, both of which pay $20 an hour. Thank god I am a right-handed person who has never been diagnosed with a mental illness.

Although it is going to be even more of a pain getting an MRI now, because in addition to all my piercings, I have a MedicAlert bracelet to take off–and the clasp on that thing is a BITCH. Oh, well. $20 an hour.

I stopped at Walgreens on the way to campus to pick up a new three-subject notebook and some pens–I also ended up with a portable file case, which seemed like it might be the answer to my long-standing organizational problems. About halfway through last semester, I started showing up to everything with the wrong binder. We’ll see if the file case does any good. And also how long it takes me to lose four black pens.

There were huge lines at Walgreens, of course, even at the cosmetics counter (which is usually the way to go when they have huge lines), but they were pretty efficient. There was also a huge line at the Union for student bus passes, but it moved really fast. So now I have school supplies AND my spring semester bus pass, so I’m feeling moderately efficient.

Today I also received the first CD I have purchased directly from Pandora Radio. While I had previously purchased a couple of CDs by artists who I recognized from hearing them on Pandora, it was only when Pandora played two tracks from God Bless the Go-Gos in quick succession, and I really liked both of them, that I actually used their “Buy this album from Amazon” link.

I am currently listening to a station based around “Teardrop” by Massive Attack. The first three songs they played were all really good AND new to me; if you don’t use Pandora, you should try it.

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*And of course, in high school, I had not spent the previous evening drinking half-priced bottles of wine. On balance, this is better.